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The best free online resources for learning Urdu
Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, and an official language in a number of Indian states. Learning Urdu will give you access to 70 million native speakers plus some 100 million who speak Urdu as a second language! These numbers are even higher when we consider that Urdu is in spoken form almost exactly the same language as Hindi, which functions as the lingua franca of India. The total number of speakers of Hindi and Urdu –…
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The best free online resources for learning Hindi
Are you looking to learn Hindi? Hindi is when spoken almost exactly the same language as Urdu, with only some differences in vocabulary and accent; recent history has however driven them apart as each one was equated with particular political and religious views. In written form, हिन्दी and اردو are both beautiful but mutually unintelligible, using the Devanagari and the (slightly adapted) Arabic alphabets, respectively. As exotic as they might look and sound, the languages are actually classified under the Indo-European family tree, so their structures can appear familiar. However, a language…
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The best free online resources for learning Spanish
Learning Spanish is fun. Spanish is a fiesta. Spanish are the lyrics of many a passionate song and Spanish are the names of many a mouthwatering dish. Spanish is (relatively) easy, energetic, has great music and food: in short, one of the coolest languages to study, and there is plenty of learning material available because so many people study it (looking at you, United States). Here are some of my most used resources. How to learn Spanish for free online? Language…
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The best free online resources for learning German
I love German. As the medium of many a philosophical idea, the complexity of its grammar and its likeness to old Dutch adorn the language to my eyes with an aura of intellectualism. Everything said or written in German looks so proper, so formal, imbued with an eloquence that my native Dutch seems to have left behind. For second-language speakers of German, the continuous need to mold one’s words to their exact function in their sentences leads, if spoken correctly,…
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The best free online resources for learning French
I am an avid language learner. I now speak about six and have studied several more. To help others who are facing the same difficulty of finding good learning material as I have gone through, I created lists of the resources I have used. Here are my recommended resources for French! How to learn French for free online? Language Transfer on YouTubeI am big fan of a YouTube channel called Language Transfer. I have used it for Spanish, Arabic and…
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The best free online resources for learning Arabic
In an ideal world, the language would be Arabic. Arabic is a refuge for anyone disenchanted by the arbitrariness of life; the apparent randomness of languages. Because Arabic makes sense. It has logic, it has a system. There is an underlying harmony and coherence. Arabic is like a perfect world in which everything is connected in a logical way. That being said, truth is that Arabic has been the most arduous language journey I have embarked on. Arabic is not one…
